Leave Me My Imagination
by fictorium
Summary: Anon prompted Swan Queen - 'Neal'. Spoilers for 2x21 and promo for 2x22.


The mattress springs groan as the other side dips, and Regina turns towards the intruder.

"I..." Emma can't meet Regina's eyes.

"Upstairs is too far," Regina fills in, and the act of charity is as unexpected as it is suddenly warming. "I don't mind."

"Thanks," Emma grunts, but Regina turns on her side before the stuttering conversation can continue; she can't relax lying on her back anymore, anyway.

* * *

It's dark when Regina wakes up again, mouth painfully dry and heart racing. She almost drops her water glass when a sob erupts from the shaking body beside her.

She looks around for Snow, even for Henry, but sees no one in the room but the two of them on this bed.

"Emma?" Regina ventures after a moment. Another sob is her only response.

"I'm sorry?" Regina tries next, and the calming of Emma's breathing makes it less important that the words are a lie.

* * *

Emma shakes Regina gently just before dawn.

Still tired, Regina knows she has to rise. The diamond is out there with those maniacs, and even though the exhaustion seems rooted in her very bones, there's likely only one person who can stop them.

"Regina," Emma whispers. "I need your help."

"Of course," Regina sighs.

"I have to tell Henry," Emma continues. "David just went to get him from Granny's, but I don't think I can..."

"Motherhood is hard," Regina snipes, unable to resist the cheap shot. "But it helps to understand that you can't really protect him from this. It's going to hurt him, however you say it."

"I don't want to be the one to break his heart," Emma says, and her voice is thick with tears. "He's gonna ask me why I couldn't hold on, why I didn't use magic-"

"I can tell him," Regina offers. "I do know him better. And he already blames me for wrecking his family."

"No," Emma says, squaring her jaw. "I should do it. But if you can be there with me?"

"I'm already here," Regina sighs.

* * *

They both do the telling, in faltering words and overlapping apologies, and Henry's face crumples in that particular way, the way that shatters Regina's heart all over again.

"We're the only parents he has now," Emma murmurs as Henry turns away and bolts upstairs. Regina hates herself for the way her heart skips at being included in the 'we'; she shouldn't ever have allowed them to reduce her to this, to having to win her own son back day by excruciating day.

"Are you okay?" Regina asks, watching Snow and Charming move around silently in the kitchen, trying and failing not to eavesdrop.

"No," Emma admits. "For what it's worth? I think I get it, now. How much pain you were in..."

Regina bristles, even as she sees the olive branch, even though she understands the attempt at empathy after a lifetime without it.

"You don't know the first thing about it, Miss Swan," Regina assures her. She's ready to gather her things and storm out when the first tremor shakes the building.

* * *

A mine is no place to have any kind of conversation, least of all this one, but Regina sees the glowing diamond and grabs Emma's arm in pure panic.

"Get Henry and get out!" Regina pleads, already scrambling for any kind of spell that can contain this, knowing there isn't one. "I don't care if you have to cross the town line and wipe the two-your parents' memories. Get out."

"What about you?" Emma demands, unable to pull her eyes away from the glowing threat.

"Either I stop it, or I go down with my town," Regina states quite plainly, releasing her grip on Emma and rolling her wrists. "There's something almost poetic about it, don't you think?"

"Like a captain with his ship?" Emma asks, before grabbing Regina in sudden inspiration. "Wait, Hook came here on his ship - maybe he can get us all out. You're a genius!"

Regina isn't expecting the kiss, but it's as short and sweet as any happiness in her life, tinged with impending doom.

"I'll blame that on a really long few days," Regina offers when Emma pulls back.

"Don't," Emma argues. "I didn't mean to... I mean, I guess I've thought about doing that for a while. But while I had all that stuff with Neal-"

"I understand," Regina says, turning away and taking her place right in front of the diamond. "I'm going to try to drain it now. You really have to go."

She emphasizes the point by raising her hands and letting the dark magic flow into her, bolt by crackling bolt.

And oh God, it hurts.

Hurts like Owen's electricity, like her mother's magical straps, like Leopold's cold, pawing hands against her bare skin; hurts like Henry's "I hate you", Daniel's lifeless body, and her father's lack of shock as she plunged her hand into his chest.

All of those, at once, and so much worse.

Emma watches in horror, mouth hanging open as she stares at Regina's agony.

"Regina-"

"I can't contain this much longer!" Regina warns. "Emma, please."

"The hat!" Emma yells over the static crackling and the straining of Regina's bones and sinews. Before Regina can warn her off, Emma dives towards her, wrapping her arms around Regina's waist from behind, muttering "just like the hat" like Henry used to mutter "did Santa come?" over and over on Christmas morning.

And just like all those months ago, Regina feels the strength from the very depths of her body-maybe even her soul-being charged and activated by Emma's touch, an explosion of purple power that starts to force the diamond's own destructive force back towards it.

"No," she whispers, because there's a little part of her that wants to wrench free and let all this destroy her, because her body can't take much more and her mind is even more fragile. Let the Savior take over, let her save Henry too, because Regina isn't sure she has this one last fight in her.

She never expected to walk back out of this mine from the moment they walked in, and now it seems that Emma is determined to drag her out one way or another, just as soon as the trigger is neutralized.

With a growl of pain against Regina's neck, Emma squeezes Regina's hands with her own, and that's what does it, in a flash of pure, blinding white. The diamond is just a dull rock on the ground, and Storybrooke is no longer shaken at its core.

"Wow," Emma says, voice echoing in the empty cavern. "That does not get any less cool."

"Trust me," Regina gasps. "It does."

"Do you need a doctor?" Emma asks, but when Regina turns to face her, she looks every bit as drained.

Regina answers her with a kiss, clasping Emma's cheeks with her hands, and pouring a lifetime's worth of unexpressed emotion into it. They kiss tenderly, and a little desperately, until they're both stumbling to their knees, clutching at each other but never breaking the contact.

"Emma!" Comes the cry a moment later, and they pull apart just in time before Snow and Charming round the corner. "It's Henry," Snow blurts. "We looked away for just a moment, and Greg and Tamara took him!"

The fleeting happiness gives way to dread, and Regina watches the world beneath her feet slip away once more.

"I'll kill them," Regina says, as sure as she's ever been in her life. "If you plan on stopping me, say so now."

"We don't," Emma says, silencing her parents with a glare. "We do this your way."

When Snow and Charming turn to lead them back out into daylight, into battle, Emma's hand grasps for Regina's.

"We do this," Regina confirms, before they break into a run.


End file.
